Oceanic pressure
by Nanotika
Summary: Calvin's forgotten memories on the topic of how he became Nautilus.
1. Chapter 1

The armored diving suit smashed against the choppy surface of water, the depths of which the buoy-lights failed to venture into. As the rippling oxygen bubbles fled the heavy form, the single filed air offered verification of its constant descent. Calvin's erratic breathing abruptly halted as the frigid temperature transcended his metal shell and numbed his hands and feet. Gasping from the oxygen tank, he willed the condensation from the inner ports of his diving helmet clear. Terror shot up Calvin's spine as he felt pangs of bone crushing pain from his left shin. In feral desperation, Calvin tried clawing at the constricting tendril, his bulky gauntlets impacting on the metal of his leg to no avail.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Calvin yelled as he wrestled with the foreign entity. His hands grasped the tendril's length before his ankle and he strained to rip it asunder. His meager attempts at causing pain to the tendril did little to loosen its grip. From beneath the water, he heard the taut twisting of leather clench his shin with more resolve. His ears rang with the immense pressure, yet his visor still did not clear. All that was visible to him was the oxygen gauge inside his helmet; the sea-worn bronze dial encroached the faintly illuminated yellow slivers at an increasing rate. Even his labored breaths became white noise to him as minutes passed. All he could smell was iron, all he could taste was blood. His limp hands prodded the diving helmet, the bulky gauntlets barely managing to adjust the exhaust valve. An oxygen tank for five hours soon condensed to five minutes. Despite feeling more tranquil, Calvin remarked that his heartbeat had doubled its original tempo.

Refusing to fall unconscious, he thrashed violently against the engulfing ocean. The resistance of the water made him feel like a weak child again. Nothing around him was solid enough to land a blow upon, so the unbridled rage only served to fester within himself. Despite the layers of clothing underneath the dive suit, all of his body heat was sucked out through dense steel. Calvin's back arched with discomfort, the gums of his closed mouth felt so arid that the tongue therein struggled with speech.

"Oh god, the bubbles." Calvin said, "They're so small. The air pressure is making them so small."

A thunderous pop exploded from inside Calvin's head, causing him to jerk forward. Fumbling with frantic hands, he sculpted the back of his helmet feeling for the condition of the two gooseneck valves. Cinnamon aroma flooded his senses, first strong enough to block his sense of taste and hearing before gradually decreasing in conjunction with visual hallucinations. Constant prodding revealed nothing damaged, yet it couldn't grant solace to his inquisition. Despite his eyelids being closed or open, his severely blurred peripheral vision sparkled and shifted in pattern.

"Who is there?" Calvin prodded the ocean before him. "By god, I feel you watching me, who the hell are you?"

He could hear voices pounding against his ears, heavy slurs of vowels and consonants that perked and waned intelligibly.

_Ak li va Ssssst-p sssss-ph _

Liquid-fear pumped from his heart and pooled sickeningly in his stomach. The full-frontal attack of cinnamon returned from the recesses of his mind before it garnered the heated embrace of apple pie.

_Va-Dommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!_

The ocean around him screamed. Instinctively lifting his hands to shield his ears, his eyes clenched shut.

_Crunch! _

Calvin's helmet smashed the stalk of coral before him. His neck sped forward as the recoiling helmet retreated back. The sickening crunch of bone against metal explained the piercing pain of his jaw. Calvin surrendered to the sheet of dancing water once more as he drifted backwards. Mind numbing pain bit his shins as they came in contact with the rumbling ocean floor.

"An earthquake." Calvin said as he lay on his back. With two erratic tremors, Calvin's head bounced upward in his helmet before coming back down with a paralyzing

_Whack_


	2. Chapter 2

Clammy hands held the tackle-box and the splintered fishing pole at Calvin's sides. Dusk was looming upon him, shading the deadened soil beneath the pine trees with sharp shadows. Scanning the cloudy surface above the mountaintops, Calvin's eyes locked in on the harsh sunlight between the clearing of branches.

"The pond is west of the house. That means if you follow the setting sun, it will lead you east, where our house is." Marissa spoke to him in memory.

Calvin's feather-stuffed jacket twisted and jostled against the tackle-box he held. Despite his short legs, he cleared the knotted tree-roots beneath his feet with agile strides. He felt the sporadic wind surge beneath the soles of his shoes, ruffling the loose knotted laces. Sweat formed just below Calvin's short black hairline, not from exhaustion but instead of panic.

_Sun means home. Sun means home. _Calvin repeated to himself.

The smell of dead pine needles filled Calvin's nose as he broke from the dense forest and into a small clearing of lifeless soil. The sunlight continued to leak down the mountain's backside, indifferent to the crushing of twigs in the valley below. Diminished light shone through the dense pine branches and highlighted the silhouette of a wolf just under the lowest branches, ten yards ahead.

The wolf's fur was spotted black with light brown and gray patches beneath the overcoat. Inquisitive blue eyes pointed motionlessly at Calvin as he too froze. The wolf was perched just beneath the sun's retreating form, intercepting Calvin's path. Deadly calm eyes probed a response from the human whom approached its den.

_I never lived close to a pond. _Calvin stated_. I never went fishing until I was twenty-one. These are not my memories._ Trapped behind the eyes of the foreign body, Calvin watched as the tackle-box hit the floor with a crunch and the fillet knife from inside the top hatch was swiftly retrieved by his hand.

He stood his ground while brandishing the knife at the wolf's direction, sinking himself into a lower defensive stance. Twigs crackled and nestled against the sides of his shoes as he became rooted to the floor. Rationing that yelling might frighten the wolf away, Calvin let his lips open and his chest fill with air. Despite baring his own teeth as he projected outward in a shout; air passed weakly over his vocal cords, unable to make so much as a sound. His grip was embedded so firmly on the knife's handle that his pale fingers were colorless.

Wind ravaged the branches of the pine trees as the gust swept downward and fanned across the whole forest.

The sun's final rays hit the edge of the knife with a blinding glint, making Calvin squint until the blade moved slightly to the side.

_My reflection, _Calvin pondered, _I'll take a look at my reflection._

Straining his eyes away from the stationary wolf, Calvin's attention fell to the reflective knife. A fluid-like blend of light colors imposed themselves on the space where his face should be; as if his brain was missing a picture that couldn't be substituted. With a deep seeded chill prickling at the back of his neck, his eyes flew back towards the direction of the wolf.

_It's a dream, Calvin_! He reasoned internally. _You are in danger. You can feel it, right? The danger is not the wolf- The danger also isn't the sun going down. Try and remember why you are trembling right now!_

"It's the wolf's eyes." Calvin's voice pierced the wind-sheared silence; chillingly unnatural, "The wolf hasn't blinked once this whole time. They are the confident and piercing eyes of something that has already won."

Calvin felt the drum of paw-prints lunging at him from behind. The soil beneath his tingling ankles pulsed with each approaching step. Terror electrified his chest and emptied the blood from his heart. Forcefully tearing his focus from the staring wolf, his peripheral vision only a flash of fur with vindictive eyes. Ice cold talons raked down his back. As he fell quickly forward, the dead pine needles splintered against his blood-stained chin.

Calvin balled his fists as he leapt up with a piercing roar. Enraged against the phantom-pain of torn flesh, he hunkered down and ground his teeth together determined to crush anything that came near. Nothing but a lunar landscape stretched out for as far as he could see. The ocean's weight slowed his efforts to turn his body and his view from inside the port-windows. Calvin turned back and forth, the rage dissipating in his mind, unveiling only emptiness. He squeezed his fists once more before letting the leather and metal gauntlets fall limply to his thighs. Despite his adrenaline laced blood, he fell powerless to the taxed muscles of his legs. The burden of his suit weighed upon his exhausted shoulders. Collapsing lightly, his left hip rested upon the floor, the locked elbow of his left arm propping himself up to a lazed seated position.

"Huh." He said, "It looked like sand, but the surface here is just layer upon layer of crushed and decomposing life."

His eyes followed the shape of a large ivory bone with hairline fractures stemming out from its upstanding width.

"A whale's rib." Calvin surmised, "It looks like that's what I hit on my way down. Coral probably doesn't even grow this deep." Calvin strained to gain footing on the shifting ground. Brushing an armored hand against the skeletal remains, he caught a glimpse of another object standing right behind it. A steel rod pierced the surface of the tarlike ground, from the central stem branched two curved appendages which were filed to beak-like points.

_The anchor from the boat._ Calvin realized. Calvin grasped the flayed rope from the anchor's tail. Reeling in slowly, he found the end of the rope meticulously sawed off.

_They didn't try to save me. _Calvin wincedknowingly,_ they purposely cut the rope and escaped._

Calvin squinted the moisture from his sight, growing irritated that he couldn't reach up and wipe his eyes through the port windows. He barred his teeth and clocked the side of the anchor's tail with a heavy fist. The disharmonious ringing in his ears did little to dampen his rage as he swung again and again against the anchor's ring. Huffing with malice, Calvin squeezed his eyes closed, his fingers finding purchase on the ring and stem before locking shut in a strangling hold. The sand holding the anchor erupted in a cloud of displaced grains as the metal form cleaved past the surface and rested upon Calvin's broad shoulder.

"I am going to return this." Calvin warned.


End file.
